The Weekly Roundup newsletter curates the top five - deals, pipeline, funding, and news from the past week.

The complete list is available here: Industry Updates

🤝Deals and Collaborations

1️⃣ CARsgen signs a $181mn deal to commercialize CAR-T in China with Huadong. Collaboration to commercialize CARsgen’s lead asset, a BCMA CAR T-cell, in mainland China, CT053 (zevorcabtagene autoleucel (zevor-cel)), is an autologous CAR T-cell product for relapsed/refractory multiple myeloma.

2️⃣ Aprinoia Therapeutics and Ross Acquisition Corp II announced a business combination agreement. Aprinoia and ROSS will each become a wholly owned subsidiary of the combined company, Aprinoia Therapeutics Holdings Limited a precision neurology company focused on developing a pipeline of highly specific central nervous system diagnostics and therapeutics, including CNS protein degraders.

3️⃣ Sun Pharma to buy Concert Pharmaceuticals for $576mn. Concert’s patent portfolio includes oral Janus kinases JAK1/2 inhibitor, deuruxolitinib, to treat Alopecia Areata, an autoimmune dermatological disease.

4️⃣ Charles River and Rznomics ink RNA-based anticancer gene therapy manufacturing deal. Rznomics specializes in RNA-based gene therapeutics. Its lead product is RZ-001 for hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), the most common cause of primary liver cancer.

5️⃣ Hematology-focused Disc Medicine has agreed to pay a $10 million down payment to Mabwell Therapeutics to develop and commercialize a portfolio of monoclonal antibodies for blood disorders.

⏫ Pipeline and Approvals

1️⃣ Neurology: FDA approves Luye Pharmaceutical's long-acting injectable for schizophrenia and bipolar disorder.

2️⃣ Ophthalmology: Lucentis biosimilar is now approved for diabetic macular edema.

3️⃣ Autoimmune: Bio-Thera Solutions’ BAT1806 receives China NMPA approval.

4️⃣ Oncology: Henlius' Novel Anti-PD-1 mAb Hansizhuang (Serplulimab) approved for the treatment of ES-SCLC.

5️⃣ Ophthalmology: MHRA approves biosimilar for vision disorders in Great Britain.

💰 Funding

1️⃣ GenScript ProBio a mAb, cell & gene therapy CDMO raises $224mn. The company will use the capital to increase manufacturing capacity, advance its R&D offerings and acquire companies that add services.

2️⃣ Pathalys inks development deal with Abingworth company, raising $150mn. Funding will be used to push upacicalcet through Phase III and support a potential launch if approved.

3️⃣ SetPoint Medical raises $80mn to advance platform for autoimmune diseases. The company is developing its novel platform for treating chronic, inflammation-mediated autoimmune diseases and is initially focused on a potentially less immunosuppressive option for treating rheumatoid arthritis (RA).

4️⃣ ADARx Pharmaceuticals raises $46mn as lead product enters the clinic. The proceeds from the Series B financing will be used to advance ADARx’s proprietary RNA targeting platform, including oligonucleotides for inhibition, degradation, and editing, together with novel oligonucleotide delivery technologies.

5️⃣ NeoPhore completes extension to Series B financing to further advance discovery pipeline. The additional funding will be used to progress NeoPhore’s expanding pipeline of drugs, encompassing multiple biological targets and modalities of treatment, to the start of IND-enabling studies in 2024.

📰 Interesting News

1️⃣ How much does aging really hurt a country? It's not a disaster, but it is a persistent drag.

2️⃣ India's Covid-19 vaccine delivery is a triple-A rated story. The true import of the success of India's vaccination program has been that the country was able to deliver on all three 'As' - Availability, Access, and Affordability.

3️⃣ MIT & Mass General Hospital have developed an AI System that can detect lung cancer. They have developed a deep learning model named “Sybil” that can be used to predict lung cancer risk, using data from just a single CT scan.

4️⃣ 22 executive digital health predictions to watch in 2023. We should anticipate more inter-device integration and a greater variety of devices including continuous glucose monitors (CGM), insulin pumps, and hybrid closed-loop systems being introduced to the markets.

5️⃣ Loading mRNA into extracellular vesicles reduces wrinkles in mice. Scientists at the University of Texas have shown that extracellular vesicles (EVs) can deliver mRNA to the skin of mice, advancing efforts to establish the delivery vehicle as an alternative to lipid nanoparticles.